


A Million Things to Be

by Minim Calibre (minim_calibre)



Category: Gifted (2017)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Parenthood, Unplanned Pregnancy, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 14:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13125552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minim_calibre/pseuds/Minim%20Calibre
Summary: She set the test on the back of the toilet next to the first one and dropped her head into her hands. Yes, she was most definitely pregnant.





	A Million Things to Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sevenfoxes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/gifts).



It was amazing, Bonnie observed distantly, the kind of thoughts that went through your head while you were sitting on a toilet with your underwear bunched around your feet, trying to work up the courage to pee on the pregnancy test you drove half an hour out of your way to buy the night before at a drugstore you had never been to where there was almost no risk of anyone you knew bumping into you. Amazing. Just…amazing.

She'd been sitting there for seventeen minutes according to the clock on her phone. Eighteen minutes. She really, really needed to pee. She was too nervous to do so. It wasn't likely, she reminded herself again. They'd been practically religious about using condoms.

Except, she reminded herself, for the one time almost a month ago, when they'd both been more than half-asleep. But they'd stopped as soon as they were awake enough to realize what they were in the middle of doing. And Frank hadn't come yet when he'd pulled out, so it was incredibly unlikely that she was pregnant. But she was two weeks late and when she'd searched online for early pregnancy symptoms in a panic on Wednesday night, she'd realized she had almost all of them. Her breasts hurt, she had to pee all the time, all she wanted to do was sleep, and everything smelled awful.

If she was, she didn't know what she was going to do.

No, she knew what she should do and she knew what she wanted to do and they were two very, very different things. And if she decided to keep it, which was what she wanted to do if she was, by some unlikely stroke of fate, pregnant, which she wasn't, she didn't know was how she was going to explain it to the other party involved. Or to her mother. Or her co-workers.

She positioned the test between her legs and closed her eyes. "You can do this," she said, hoping that saying it out loud would make it true somehow. She'd done this before. Once. As a freshman in college. She'd only been a couple of days late and it had been a false alarm. This was different.

At least the actual peeing was a relief, she thought. Opening her eyes, she held the test out in front of her with one hand while she wiped with the other, and watched the dye wick up the results window, leaving behind first one line, then a second, dark and unmistakable.

Not a false alarm. She was almost surprised by her lack of surprise. As unlikely as it was, she must have known on some level.

She needed to pee again, so she took the second test that came in the box just to be sure.

She set the test on the back of the toilet next to the first one and dropped her head into her hands. Yes, she was most definitely pregnant.

And she was going to be late for work if she didn't get off the toilet and get dressed.

~

"Class: who can tell me what the five senses are?" A third of the hands in the room went up. "Justin, how about you?"

He frowned in concentration. "Sight, scent, taste…" Frowned even more. "Sight, scent, taste…" Mary, across from him, gave him an encouraging nod. "Sight, scent, taste, touch…sound?"

"Very good, Justin! Yes, the five senses are sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch." She glanced up at the clock. Oh, thank god. "Okay, class, time to clean up your desks and get ready for our closing circle. And today, I want everybody to tell me one thing they want to do this weekend."

Some of them wanted to go swimming, some of them wanted to go to the park, some just wanted to watch TV or play video games.

"What about you Mary? What do want to do this weekend, babe?"

"Frank said we could go to the beach so I can look for shells when I get home from Roberta's, but I just got a book on linear algebra and I want to read it. We might do both. He says I should do more than just math on the weekends."

"Well, he's right. That's very smart of him." She smiled and tried to ignore the voice inside her head that was reminding her just how full Frank's hands already were with Mary alone and just how bad an idea the decision she wanted to make probably was for everyone, at least if she wanted to have him involved.

~

When she got home, Bonnie went into the bathroom and stared at the two positive pregnancy tests, still sitting on the back of the toilet where she'd left them that morning.

She called her gynecologist's office to schedule an appointment. The earliest one available was three weeks out, so she called Planned Parenthood and was able to get an appointment for Tuesday morning instead.

Bonnie took her hair out of the bun and ran her hands through it until she thought it looked presentable. She was supposed to meet Frank in a couple of hours, after he'd fed Mary her dinner and sent her over to Roberta's for the night. She wondered if she should cancel, or if it would matter if she did. Probably not. They weren't serious, at least, neither of them had ever said anything about being serious.

She had told herself when they'd started talking again, after he got Mary back, when Bonnie'd gone home with him again against her better judgment once again, that it wouldn't be, and it hadn't been, even after they'd agreed to be exclusive. What they had was mostly lighthearted conversation over drinks at Ferg's most Friday nights, followed by enthusiastic sex as his place, followed by her slipping out in the morning before Mary came home. They knew a lot about each other's likes and dislikes, she thought, but not a lot about each other.

The rest of the week, they didn't really talk except to confirm plans or cancel them. And they certainly hadn't talked about what they were doing very much at all, even though they'd been doing whatever it was they were doing since the end of November and it was the end of March now.

They should talk about that. Her hand moved as if by reflex to her abdomen. There were a lot of things they should talk about and she was only ready to talk about some of them, if she was even ready to talk about any of them at all.

~

"You're looking exceptionally serious," Frank said, pulling out a chair for her. The din of the bar seemed even louder than usual.

She forced herself to smile. "I am. Very serious, remember?"

He grinned at her in return, his eyes crinkling up at the corners, reminding her how she'd managed to get herself into this situation in the first place. "I do recall you telling me that."

"Can I ask you a question?" she blurted out. "And before I ask, there's no right or wrong answer. I just want to make sure we're on the same page, that's all."

With a wary look, he said, "Okay."

"What is this? You. Me. What we're doing."

"Wow. That's a loaded question."

"I'm sorry. You know what, let's forget I asked."

"No, I can answer. The short version is, at this point, if someone asked, I would probably refer to you as my girlfriend. Obviously, you might not agree, but that's the page I'm on. Unless that's a problem, in which case, we might have a longer and very awkward conversation in our near future."

Okay, that was not what she had expected. "No, that's good. We are on the same page." The fact that he thought of this as something a little more than just a regular hookup should have made the possible future easier to think about, but it didn't. It just made things that much more complicated. After a moment, she added, "I think."

Frank sighed and leaned forward, examining her face closely. "Somehow, you still look like you have an awkward conversation in mind."

"No, no awkward conversations in mind," she lied. "I'm just getting over a headache caused by a classful of loud and unruly first graders." Bonnie looked down at the happy hour menu, nerves making her stomach churn. Nothing looked appetizing, except the drinks, which she shouldn't have. "And tequila or beer would probably bring it back. You know what, why don't we get out of here? Unless you've got your heart set on hearing whatever's next on the jukebox or you've already ordered."

"I promise you, I have no desire to hear whatever's next on the jukebox. And I haven't ordered. I was waiting for you to get here."

~

"You're sure you don't want a beer?" Frank asked from behind his refrigerator door.

"Yes. Very sure."

"Your other choices are milk and extremely watered-down apple juice."

Bonnie laughed, saying, "Those are very sophisticated options. Sir, I'll take the watered-down apple juice."

"Mary's not a big fan of water," he explained when he handed her the glass. "I'm not a big fan of Mary drinking something that's mostly sugar, so this was our compromise." Gently, he pushed Fred off the faded green couch and sat down next to her.

Bonnie tucked her feet underneath her and leaned against his shoulder. She took a sip of her drink. "It's a very sad compromise," she said.

"It's a little better with grape juice, but apple juice was what was on sale."

She wrinkled her nose. "And Mary drinks it? Willingly?"

"Mary is seven. If it's sweeter than plain water, she'll drink it."

"I, on the other hand, am thirty-five, and I think I am going to go replace this with plain water."

She got up and dumped the contents of her glass in the sink and refilled it from the tap. She thought about how cramped his apartment was, how crowded it was with stacks of books and Mary's toys covering almost every flat surface. Then thought of her own, just as small and yet still a stretch for her to afford without a roommate on a teacher's salary. Her stomach lurched again.

She wondered if she should just tell him now, say "I'm pregnant" and get it over with. It was just that she wanted a few days to think first. To make up her mind as much as she could before anyone else weighed in with their opinion.

~

Even without the appointment looming, based on how she felt when she woke up, Bonnie would have called in sick on Tuesday. She'd gone to bed an hour earlier than she usually did after almost falling asleep over dinner and yet still felt like she hadn't slept at all. She went to have a bowl of cereal, but the milk had gone off and the smell of it sent her rushing to the sink to pour it out, gagging as she tried to keep from throwing up. She didn't manage it, just like she hadn't managed to stop herself from puking five other times since Sunday.

The appointment itself was fine. Everyone was nice. Yes, she was pregnant, here were her options, here were some resources. Remember that this was her decision to make, no one else's. Yes, she knew that, thank you very much.

She was exhausted and irritable. She wanted to go back to bed and knew she shouldn't.

Back at her apartment, she poured herself a glass of orange juice. It tasted sharp and a kind of metallic, but it made her feel a little bit better. Feeling listless and overwhelmed, she curled up on her sofa under an afghan her grandmother had crocheted with one of her comfort reads in hand, only to find she didn't have the attention span for it.

She read Baby Center articles on her phone until she found herself in frustrated tears, at which point she gave up and played Words With Friends.

~

Her phone's cheerful ringtone made its way into her dream, stopped and then started up again. The third time that happened, she realized it was actually ringing, she'd fallen asleep, and someone was trying to get ahold of her. Bonnie squinted at her phone. Frank was trying to get ahold of her.

"Mary said there was a substitute today," he said. "I thought I'd see if you were feeling okay."

"Actually, is there any way Roberta could watch Mary for a little while? We need to talk and I think it would be better if we did it here." He knew where she lived. He'd dropped her off a few times and brought her sweater over once when she'd forgotten it on his couch.

It was so quiet on the other end of the line that she thought for a moment the call had dropped. "Okay," he said, finally. "I'll call Roberta and then call you back."

"Great, thanks."

While she was waiting for him to call back, Bonnie splashed some water her face to wake herself up and changed into something that wasn't a wrinkled mess from having accidentally napped in it. Then, after he'd called and said he'd be over shortly, she put away the dishes and started nervously tidying her apartment while she rehearsed what she was going to say.

~

She'd rehearsed a long, careful speech explaining the situation. Somehow, what she ended up doing instead was blurting out, "I'm pregnant," as soon as he was through her door.

Frank didn't say anything. He just stood there, looking at her, face blank and unreadable.

"That wasn't how I was planning to tell you," she said. "We should probably sit down."

"We probably should."

So they did.

"What do you want to do?" he asked. He said it without infliction, his face still without much expression at all.

"I'm keeping it," she said. Because that was what she'd decided on, no matter how much she tried to talk herself out of it. "You don't have to be involved."

To her surprise, she thought she saw a flash of anger, quickly and carefully hidden. "Why wouldn't I be involved?"

"You already have a child that needs so much from you. I don't want you to resent this one and I'm worried that you would."

There was the anger again, except maybe it wasn't that. No, he looked…hurt. Hurt and resigned. "Rest assured," he said quietly, almost bitterly, "that I would never resent a child. Believe me, I know what's that like all too well. I'm not going to pretend I'm thrilled about this, but I would never resent a child."

She believed him. That didn't mean he wouldn't resent her.

"So you want to be involved?" she said. "You're not going to try to change my mind?"

"No, I'm not going to try to change your mind and yes, I do." He took a deep breath. "How long have you known?"

"Just since Friday morning. I had an appointment today to confirm it and discuss my options. I'm sorry. I know you should have had a say in this."

"How far along are you?"

"Six weeks. That's the estimate they gave me."

"Do you want me to go to your appointments with you? I went to most of Diane's when she was pregnant with Mary. It might help to have someone along who's done this before."

She nodded, surprised. "It would. Thank you. I'm sorry."

"Bonnie, don't. Don't apologize." He smiled and it was faint and somehow sad. "I know better than most people that things like this happen all the time, remember? And that the decisions that get made when they do aren't always the ones that seem to make the most sense." He shook his head slightly, finally looking bewildered. "This isn't the conversation I thought we'd be having."

"What conversation did you think we'd be having?"

"Suffice it to say, a very different one," Frank said. He left it at that.

~

To her surprise, he still wanted to see her Friday.

"Even now that I'm…you know," she said when he called to confirm that she was, in fact, still planning on seeing him then.

"Especially now."

"I thought it would change things between us."

"It might," he admitted. "It hasn't yet, but I don't think either of us can say for sure that it won't, if that's what you're afraid of."

It was, at least part of it was. The relationship was new enough and ill-defined enough that she worried it wouldn't survive their impending parenthood. She wondered if it was better to rip the band-aid off now, while they still liked each other, while it was still just liking him for her, instead of trying to make something work that might not have anything to work with, not at its core.

~

"If you're thirsty, I bought orange juice that's not watered down," Frank said. She'd told him when he'd called the night before that it was one of the few things that she could stand to put in her mouth and one of the few things she was still able to reliably keep down.

"Yes, please. That would be good."

"If you're hungry, I can also make you a slice of toast."

Dry toast, but not buttered, was fine. Bananas were fine, as long as they were still mostly green. Highly processed, incredibly unhealthy, probably bad for the baby chicken nuggets were great. Food that she actually liked and that wouldn't be found on a menu for a picky toddler was, apparently, out. "This part goes away, right?"

"Diane threw up several times a day for the first six months and nearly had to be hospitalized. That's why I wound up at so many of her appointments."

Bonnie raised her eyebrows. "I hope you know that that is not comforting. In the slightest."

"Her OB also said it's not that common."

"That is slightly more comforting," she allowed.

If she called her mom and told her she was pregnant, she could find out if it had been like this for her, this constant low-level nausea and exhaustion. She hadn't yet. She hadn't told any of her friends, either. The only person who wasn't part of the medical field who knew was Frank.

"Have you told anyone?" she asked, halfway through the movie they were watching.

He hit pause. "No. I plan on telling Roberta soon. Mary…I don't know when I'm going to tell Mary. I'll tell Evelyn eventually, as a courtesy, but not until after Mary knows."

"I didn't know you were still talking to Evelyn."

"I'm in limited contact with her and only because Mary asked. She loves her, even after everything, so once a month there's a phone call and they exchange letters every other week or so."

She hadn't thought about Frank's mother in relation to her child. At all. "I don't think I want her in our child's life."

"I don't, either," he said. "That will be made perfectly clear. I don't especially want her in Mary's, but Mary's old enough to make that decision for herself."

"I haven't even told my mom. And I keep telling myself that it's just that it's early, that I'm only six or seven weeks along, that I'll tell her at twelve weeks when they say it's safe to tell people, but then if I'm honest with myself, I know that it's really that I don't know how to tell her." She didn't want to talk about this any longer. "You know what, let's just watch the movie."

~

The morning's queasiness fought with her desire to remain in bed and won. Bonnie grabbed Frank's shirt from the night before and hastily threw it on before sprinting to the bathroom. There was a moment, on her knees in front of his toilet, where she thought she might be able to ride it out without actually throwing up loudly and embarrassingly in someone else's bathroom, but no. God forbid she be that lucky.

She heard the creak of the bedroom door open. Great. Just what she needed, a witness to her humiliation.

"I'll get you a glass of water," he said from the other side of the door.

She was still in front of the toilet trying to keep her stomach from going for round two when he got back and, of course, failing just as he opened the door. From the corner of her eye, his bare feet came into view, then his knees as he crouched beside her, pulling her hair out of her face while she vomited.

"Thanks," she muttered when she was pretty sure that nothing more was going to come up. She pushed herself away from the toilet and scooted back until she was resting against the bathroom wall.

Frank handed her the water. Then he closed the toilet seat and flushed the toilet. He was naked, she noted, absently, sipping the water slowly so as not to startle her stomach into round three.

"Is your toothbrush in your bag?" he asked.

She nodded. "Can I use Mary's toothpaste?" The thought of anything mint near her mouth didn't appeal. Even bubblegum had to be better than that right now.

"Sure."

Bonnie stood, still feeling a little shaky. She set the glass on the back of the toilet and leaned against the sink until Frank came back with her toothbrush.

"I got vomit on your shirt," she said, taking it from him.

"It comes out in the wash."

He was good at this. That fact shouldn't have surprised her; he was already a parent, after all. It did though, just a little.

~

Every single time she tried to button a skirt or a pair of pants only to find that she no longer could, Bonnie gave thanks for dresses. With a sigh, she gave up on yet another skirt. She let it drop to the floor, stepping out of it and pulling a far more forgiving dress out of the closet instead. She didn't look pregnant—a least, she didn't think she looked pregnant—but her wardrobe was begging to differ.

Ten weeks tomorrow. Her first appointment with Frank there with her on Tuesday. Just one more month until the end of the school year, thank god.

~

Bonnie knelt next to Mary's desk in the otherwise-empty classroom. "Mary, do you have something you want to say to me?" 

Mary glared at her. "Sorry, Miss Stevenson," she droned. "I shouldn't have talked back to you, I won't do it again. Can I go to recess now?"

Bonnie nodded and pinched the bridge of her nose as Mary rushed out the door to join her friends. Frank hadn't said anything to her yet, she knew that for a fact, but something had made it so that Mary had spent the last week and a half frowning at Bonnie with increasing intensity and displeasure. And yesterday and today, she'd been nothing shy of a complete pill. Any other child and Bonnie would have already called their parents to see what was going on.

She wasn't dating any other child's parent, though, and none of the other children in her class were actual geniuses who picked up on more than a seven-year-old should. Until this week, she never would have thought she'd be thankful for the two mornings a week that Mary was pulled out for her math classes.

~

"Is Mary acting strangely around you?" she asked Frank as they were eating dinner the next day. That was how Fridays went now: take out that she provided at his kitchen table, followed by a movie or a long walk before bed.

"No. Well, not really. She's been moody, though."

"I think she knows something's going on. She was really rude to me during class yesterday. "

"She mentioned when she came home that she got in trouble. I was meaning to ask about that. What happened?"

"I told the class that, even if they thought they knew every word that would be on the vocabulary test, they should still practice it with their study partner. She said that was a waste of time and she shouldn't have to do it and that if I were a better teacher, I'd know that."

"I'll talk to her."

"I think you need to tell her," she said.

Frank took a sip of his beer and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. "And when the time is right, I will."

"No," she said, firmly. "You need to tell her before she figures it out for herself, if she hasn't already."

"Roberta told me the same thing." He sounded as if that fact annoyed him.

"Well, Roberta's right."

"Have you told your mother?" The way he said it seemed pointed somehow.

"No." She gave him a tight, fake smile and stabbed at her salad. "But I'm not her teacher and I don't have to see my mother in my classroom every day."

"I'll tell her Tuesday, after your appointment," he said. "I don't want to tell her before then."

~

Her doctor cautioned her, as he spread the uncomfortably cold gel across her abdomen, that he might not be able to pick the heartbeat up on the doppler this visit, and if he didn't, she was scheduled for a dating ultrasound the following Monday. He did, though, a rapid alien whoosh of sound that made her eyes widen and her hand tighten around Frank's. His face, when she looked at him, was just as unreadable as it had been the day she'd told him she was pregnant.

~

"I'm keeping Mary home from school tomorrow," Frank told her that night over the phone. There was no preamble or context, but, she thought, dread sinking into her belly, she didn't need either.

"You told Mary."

"I did," he said. "And it wasn't a disaster at all, oh no. There was absolutely no yelling or crying or locking herself in the bathroom." She wondered if he realized how angry he sounded.

"Is there anything I can do?" she asked, feeling helpless and guilty, even though she knew it wasn't actually her fault.

She winced at the resignation in his voice when he said, "No. Right now, she's scared and she's mad and she's worried about being replaced."

"You know that's a normal reaction, right? Mary doesn't want to have to share you with someone else." Even to her own ears, it sounded too pat.

"Mary," he said, "doesn't want to see her world turned upside down again. And after the last year, who can blame her?"

~

He kept Mary home again on Thursday, though Bonnie didn't find that out until she was in the classroom. On her lunch break, she texted Frank with a preemptive cancellation of their plans for Friday. That was fine, she told herself. She had plenty of things she'd been putting off until later to occupy her.

When he called her later that night, he was apologetic but agreed that it was a good idea, adding, "She's not going to school tomorrow, either. I think you should come over this weekend and talk to Mary yourself."

"Sunday?" she asked.

"Yeah, Sunday will work. Insofar as anything will work."

"You have a scared little girl. It's okay. I'll come over after breakfast."

~

When Bonnie arrived, Mary was sitting on her bed with Fred in her lap. Her eyes were red and she had a box of tissues beside her, a pile of used ones next to that. And when she saw Bonnie, her face twisted in fury for a second, arms tightening around her cat.

"Hi, Miss Stevenson," she said, each word sounding like it was being yanked out of her against her will.

"Mary," Frank said, calmly, gently. He looked—well, he looked about like she imagined anyone dealing with their child's week-long meltdown would. "We've talked about this ad nauseam. I want you to be nice to Bonnie. If you can't manage that, at least try to be polite."

"I'm _being_ polite."

"No, you're not. Nor are you being fair, to me or to Bonnie."

"It's okay," Bonnie said.

"No, it's not." He sighed. To Mary, he said, "No one's getting replaced here. Bonnie and the baby aren't your enemies. When the other two cats came along with Fred, you loved them, but did you love Fred any less?"

"No, but that's different." She was crying again.

"How is that different?"

Mary looked at Bonnie, then turned her attention back to Frank. "It's obvious," she said.

"Obviously not, or I wouldn't be asking you to explain it to me, now would I?"

Quietly, Bonnie said, "It's because Fred's your cat, isn't it? All yours and nothing can change that. The other cats are still just cats." Slowly, Mary nodded, and Bonnie continued. "But this is different because Frank's your uncle and this is his baby."

Mary nodded again and turned to Frank, "Even Miss Stevenson understands," she told him. "It's not that hard."

"Mary, you're my child, every bit as much as the baby will be."

"You don't know that," she said, and her voice broke with a hiccup. "You've never had a baby of your own."

"Yeah, I have. I had you, remember? I was there when you were born and I've loved you your whole life."

"I guess."

"You'll still have Frank all to yourself most of the time," Bonnie said. "The baby isn't going to live with you. He or she will be living with me and just visit sometimes." It wasn't something they'd discussed yet, and, from the expression on Frank's face, it was clear it was something they should have talked about before she brought it up.

From the expression on Mary's face, it was clear that she didn't really believe it, but she just shrugged and curled in on herself.

Frank sat down on the bed and put his hand on Mary's cheek, gently tilting her face up until she was looking at him. "Think of it this way: you'll have a brother or sister you can mold to your will," he told her.

"Cousin," Mary replied, subdued.

"Hey, only technically, you know that."

"Mary," Bonnie said, unsure if it was a good idea or not, even if it was the only thing she could come up with, "if my doctor's office says it's okay, do you want to come with me tomorrow?"

"What's tomorrow?"

"Bonnie has an ultrasound to confirm her due date," Frank told her. "The first time I saw you was when your mom had hers."

~

It was fine, according to the person she spoke to when she called her doctor's office at lunch the next day. On the way there, Mary was mostly quiet, like she'd been since she'd returned the classroom after her morning math class, but she seemed calmer than she had the day before.

"Will it show you if it's a boy or a girl?" she asked.

"Not yet," Frank told her. "That happens at the next one, if it happens at all. We had no idea with you. I even bet your mom that you'd be a boy and she'd have to name you after me."

Mary looked fascinated as Frank quietly explained the technology to her while the technician prepared everything. Bonnie bit her lip, hoping this would help with anything.

"Cool," Mary said, sounding almost awed as the grainy images showed up on the screen.

Bonnie stared at the figure that was squirming inside of her. It was strange that something could be moving so vigorously without her being able to feel a thing. "It looks almost like a person," she said. Strange and also overwhelming.

"That's your brother or sister," Frank said.

Bonnie noticed that Mary didn't even correct him.

~

"Mary has suggested Ada for a girl."

Bonnie stretched out as best she could on the folding chair and watched Mary playing in the sand. "And what were her suggestions for a boy?" She wanted a boy, she realized. She was too afraid that, no matter how much Frank would protest otherwise, a girl would grow up too much in Mary's shadow.

She'd find out in a couple of days if she was lucky.

"Copernicus. Or Isaac, after Newton."

"No, and Isaac is my maternal grandfather's name and he's still alive, so also no."

"She also suggested Fred before deciding that would be too confusing. I don't think she was actually serious about it, though."

"That is good, because I would have vetoed it immediately."

Mary, she knew, was still not one-hundred percent sold on the matter, but she was trying. And in the month since school had ended, they'd been trying to spend time with her together to make it seem normal. It felt like it was working.

"I'm still mad," Mary had admitted to her once when it was just the two of them, Frank off at the marina, working. "And Evelyn doesn't approve. But I think you make Frank happy, so I'm trying not to be."

Bonnie felt the faint fluttering of movement and rubbed her belly. She still wasn't huge, but even her most forgiving dresses stretched tightly across her torso. She'd need to make time to go shopping for actual maternity clothing.

~

It wasn't a boy.

As the technician said they were having a girl, Bonnie felt her heart sink, just a little. She glanced over at Frank, standing there with Mary in front of him.

"You'll get to teach her everything," he told Mary, ruffling her hair.

Mary leaned back against him and tilted her head back to look up. "Like you did with me?"

He squeezed her shoulders. "Exactly like that."

It eased her mind a tiny bit that they both seemed happy about it.

That night, she finally called her mother and told her about the baby. Her mother gave a long-suffering sigh, the sort she always gave when she was disappointed in Bonnie, the one she'd made when Bonnie had told her she was going into teaching. "Are you sure you're doing the right thing?"

"Mom, I'm thirty-five."

"Are you still with the father?"

"Yes, I am. His name is Frank, by the way."

"Is he kind to you?"

Bonnie thought about it for a moment and said, "Yes. Yes, he is."

"That's something, at least."

"Yes," she said. "It is."

~

"Have you thought about going back to teaching?" Bonnie shifted, trying to get comfortable. Being on her back seemed like it would be comfortable, but apparently, when you were six months pregnant, that was frowned upon. In the end, she gave up and curled up against Frank, her head resting on his shoulder, her right leg thrown over his thigh.

He laughed, sounding horrified. "No, god no. Not at a university, anyway."

"Why not?"

"Many, many reasons, the main one being that I didn't realize how much I hated academia until I was out of it." He turned his head to look directly at her. "That was Evelyn's world. And her plan for me, insofar as she had one. I was to be disappointing, but not embarrassing."

"What would you have done? Other than academia?"

"I don't know. Teach, maybe, just not at the university level."

"High school?"

"I've thought about it, especially now that everything with Mary's settled and especially now that, we're, well"—he gestured at her belly—"expecting. I've even looked into the requirements for Florida, so it's not out of the question."

"You could be that sexy teacher all the girls sigh over, like Indiana Jones."

"I read the comments on my Rate My Professor page. They'd be more likely to sigh over my tough grading."

Laughing a little, Bonnie buried her face in his neck and kissed it. "Did you at least achieve a hotness rating?"

Frank trailed his fingers down her back, his hand coming to rest just above her hip. "Yes, unfortunately."

"Your students did have eyes," she said. She kissed his neck again and slid her thigh across his; his breath hitched when her leg brushed lightly against his dick. "Which they clearly were using." 

Carefully, he maneuvered their bodies until he had her straddling him. "Clearly," he said.

He kissed her, softly at first, then deeper until both of them were breathing erratically. Bonnie could feel the heat of his erection pressed against her pussy and slid her body up until all she had to do was slide back down to have him inside her.

"Hey you," she said, sitting up and setting a slow rhythm with her hips while he stayed stone-still beneath her. It worked best that way now.

He slid one hand between them at an awkward angle so his thumb could brush against her clit while she rode him. She leaned forward to increase the pressure there, reached around her back to stroke his balls while she rocked against him, faster and harder as her orgasm built and then hit, staying with it until she felt his body tense up, his hips pushing into her as he came.

Bonnie lifted herself off of him and settled back down beside him. She'd have to get up and pee in a minute and wipe his come off her thighs before it got cold and sticky. Still breathing heavily, Frank pulled her closer. He smelled faintly of fresh sweat.

"I love you," he said.

She went very still, then let out a quiet, "Oh."

She hadn't expected that.

~

"Did you mean it?" she asked.

Frank paused, the coffee filter he'd just taken out still in his hand. For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to reply, then he put the filter in the basket, turned around to face her, and said in measured tones, "Yes."

"How? I mean, when?"

"For a while now," he answered, and went back to making his coffee. "Since before I knew you were pregnant. When you called me that night, I thought you were going to break things off."

"I need to process this," she told him. She took a sip of her orange juice, then asked, "Why?"

He poured the water into the reservoir, flicked on the switch, and turned to look at her again. "Why what?"

"Why me?"

"You're funny. You're also kind, kinder than I sometimes deserve. And I know it's been rough, and I know she's been hard on you at times, but you've been good with Mary."

"I'd thought," she began, stopping for a moment when the baby kicked hard enough to make her wince. "I'd thought that if we ever hit the point where one of us would say it, it would be me first. But I didn't realize until you said it that I feel that way, and it's hard for me to wrap my head around." She did. It was. "And I know I'm late saying it, but I love you, too."

He smiled. She'd seen that kind of smile on his face before, she realized, but only directed at Mary.

~

She didn't want to admit it, but as her due date drew closer and closer, she finally had to accept that she needed to find a bigger place. She'd measured for the baby furniture she planned on ordering as soon as her daughter was born, and it wouldn't fit.

"I can ask Roberta," Frank said. "The two-bedrooms here sometimes come available."

"How come you're not in one?"

"It's been hard enough to afford one bedroom, even with the discount I get for occasionally working on the air conditioners. And we've been here since we got to Florida."

Roberta told them one would be available at the end of September.

"The Johnsons gave notice," she said, directing the comment to Frank.

"I can't say I'm sorry to hear that," he replied. To Bonnie, he said, "They fight often, frequently while they're outside where everyone can hear them and usually at night when Mary's trying to sleep."

"They sound awful."

Even with the second bedroom, it was cheaper than where she lived now, though not having a washing machine in the apartment would be a difficult adjustment. She could afford the deposit and it would be good to be close to Frank and to Mary, especially after the baby was born. Bonnie slept on it, decided that the positives far outweighed the negatives, and called Roberta to arrange a time to sign the lease.

~

Frank did most of the packing and all of the moving.

"Thank you," she told him, bringing him a beer from the refrigerator. She'd picked up some for when he came over.

He shook his head. "Don't mention it."

~

He had a toothbrush at her place before she even finished unpacking—her mattress was at least a decade newer and far more comfortable than his, so Fridays were spent there now.

Three weeks after she'd moved in and a month before she was due, Bonnie turned to him while they were in bed.

"You and Mary could move in here, you know," she said. She'd been thinking about it for a while now. "Would you, no, do you want to?"

"Mary could use an actual bedroom," he said after a moment, "Even if she has to share it. She's never had one. Diane was planning on moving when Mary was old enough to need one, and after, well, you know how that turned out."

"But do _you_ want to?"

He kissed her forehead. "Yes, if you want us to."

"I'm the one who asked, so yes, obviously I want you to, but only if Mary says yes, too. And I know it doesn't have to be up to her, but her life is changing next month. I think she needs to have a say in it."

In the end, Mary didn't need convincing. "I'll have a bedroom?" she said.

"Yes," Frank said. "But remember, you'll share it with your sister once she's no longer in a crib."

"Can I have my own bookshelf in it?"

"You can have your own bookshelf."

She looked down at the cat in her lap. "Fred says yes, and I'll always go along with what Fred says. Can I have a piano, too?"

Bonnie bit back a smile as Frank rolled his eyes. "No. And that answer isn't changing, so you might as well stop asking."

Mary shrugged. "You might change your mind and say yes."

~

Her due date came and went, leaving Bonnie uncomfortable and cranky and ready for it to be over.

"First babies are often late," Mary told her. "Frank told me that. I was supposed to be born in July, but I was a week late."

Thankfully, Bonnie only had to wait three days. She woke up at three in the morning to use the bathroom and noticed that her backache had finally turned into contractions, mild enough that she was able to go back to sleep.

The next time she woke up, they were painful and closer together, so she shook Frank awake.

He sat up on his elbows, bleary-eyed. "Is it time?" he said.

Another contraction hit, so she nodded as she breathed through it. "Yes," she said when it had passed. "Yes, it is."

"I'll call Roberta and wake up Mary," he said, getting out of bed.

Fourteen hours after that, she was holding her daughter. Their daughter. Ada, just like Mary had suggested. Ada Diane Adler, because Bonnie had insisted and Frank hadn't argued. Bald and naked and squirming and bright red as she tried to latch on to a breast. "She's beautiful," Bonnie said.

Frank looked down at Ada, eyes filled with wonder, and gently stroked her cheek with his finger. "She is." Then he pushed a strand of Bonnie's hair, damp with sweat and sticking uncomfortably to her face, behind her ear. "And so are you."

She leaned back against the hospital bed. Ada had finally figured out the nipple and was sucking away. "You should go tell Mary and Roberta."

"I will," he said, still looking at the both of them, and any remaining fears Bonnie had that Ada might come second to him vanished. "In a minute."

"No," she said. "Go on. Mary's not going to want to miss a minute of this."


End file.
